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The Effectiveness of Schema Therapy Integrated with Rehabilitation on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Existential Anxiety in Patients with Congestive Heart Failure

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Abstract

Patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) are faced with various physical and psychological stressful factors, which ‎leads to decreased quality of life. Considering the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation (CER) and existential anxiety with early maladaptive schemas, one of the methods capable of assisting the rehabilitation of the patients with CHF is the schema therapy. The current study aimed at determining the effectiveness of schema therapy integrated with rehabilitation on CER and existential anxiety in patients with CHF. The study was a true experimental with pretest/posttest design and a control group. The study sample was consisted of 25 patients with CHF in Guilan Province, Iran, 2017, selected by the convenience sampling method and assigned into two groups (one experimental and one control). To collect the data, cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (CERQ) and existential anxiety inventory (EAI) were used before and after the intervention. A ten-session young schema therapy was implemented for the experimental group. Two-way ANOVA was used for data analysis and Cohen’s d test measured effect extent. The results of analysis showed that the group schema therapy integrated with rehabilitation improved CER and existential anxiety in patients with CHF (p < 0.001). According to the findings of the research, schema therapy can improve the cognitive and emotional symptoms in patients with CHF.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants and their families who patiently participated in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Guilan, Guilan, Iran

    Ebrahim Rahbar Karbasdehi, Abbas Abolghasemi & Fatemeh Rahbar Karbasdehi

Authors
  1. Ebrahim Rahbar Karbasdehi
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  2. Abbas Abolghasemi
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  3. Fatemeh Rahbar Karbasdehi
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Contributions

Mr Ebrahim Rahbar Karbasdehi contributed in designing the research, Data collection, literature search, creating figures, tables, and Online sources. He also worked on writing the manuscript and Critical revision of the article and acted as corresponding author. Dr. Abbas Abolghasemi contributed in conception, data analysis and interpretation as well as drafting and writing the manuscript. He was also responsible for treating the patients. Miss Fatemeh Rahbar Karbasdehi helped in conception and designing the article. All authors contributed in final approval of the version to be published.

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Correspondence to Ebrahim Rahbar Karbasdehi.

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All authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest with this study.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

Research Involing Human and Animal Rights

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Rahbar Karbasdehi, E., Abolghasemi, A. & Rahbar Karbasdehi, F. The Effectiveness of Schema Therapy Integrated with Rehabilitation on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Existential Anxiety in Patients with Congestive Heart Failure. J Contemp Psychother 48, 233–239 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-018-9390-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-018-9390-2

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